Tutorial Guide for the Setup of the an L2TP VPN Connection on Windows Vista

L2TP protocol is a preferred option for devices that doesn’t support the OpenVPN protocol for a VPN connection. However, there are many VPN providers that offer a client software along with their service to assist their customers with the connection process. There are many, who don’t have any such facility, compelling the user to move to a manual configuration. However, a simple guide to help you create and configure an L2TP VPN connection manually on a Windows Vista based system is given below.

To begin with, you need to get to the ‘Network & Sharing Manager’. Click on the ‘start’ button on the taskbar and then click on the ‘network’ option on the menu. This will open the ‘network’ window, where you should click on the ‘network & sharing center’ button on the top bar to go to the desired location.

Click on the option ‘setup a connection or network’ on the left side of the window and choose the option ‘connect to a workplace’ from the new window opened up.

Now click on the option ‘Use my internet connection(VPN)’ to proceed with the creation of a VPN connection on your system.

You will be asked to enter your VPN provider’s IP address in the ‘internet address’ field and a desired name for the connection in the ‘destination name’ field. You will get the IP address from the welcome mail from your VPN service provider, after entering which, you should click on the ‘next’ button to continue.

In the next step, you will be asked to enter the log in credentials of your VPN service, which you can get again from the welcome mail. Click on ‘create’ button after entering the required details in their respective fields.

You will see a message ‘The connection is ready to use’, where you need to click on the ‘close’ button to return to the network manager window.

Now click on the option ‘manage network connections’ on the left side of the window, then right click on the name of the new VPN connection and select the ‘properties’ option on the drop down menu.

In the properties menu, move to the ‘networking’ tab, change the type of VPN to ‘L2TP’ option and then click on the ‘IPSec’ button. In the ‘IPSec settings’ window, enter the pre-shared key for the connection and click ‘OK’ to proceed and then ‘OK’ again to close the window.

Now double click on the connection name, enter log in credentials as required and click on ‘connect’ to establish a connection.

With this step, the process for the creation and configuration of the new VPN connection is complete and you can now enjoy anonymous surfing.

Thus, this guide provides you step-by-step instructions for creating an L2TP VPN connection on your Windows Vista based system and then configuring it to use it with the VPN service that you have subscribed to.

To verify that you have successfully connected to the VPN server and you are surfing anonymously, you can verify the IP address of your system at any of the online IP address lookup services.